Antony

But presently he left Lucius Censorinus in charge of Greece, and crossing over into Asia[*](In 41 B.C.) laid hands on the wealth that was there. Kings would come often to his doors, and wives of kings, vying with one another in their gifts and their beauty, would yield up their honour for his pleasure; and while at Rome Caesar was wearing himself out in civil strifes and wars, Antony himself was enjoying abundant peace and leisure, and was swept back by his passions into his wonted mode of life.

Lute-players like Anaxenor, flute-players like Xanthus, one Metrodorus, a dancer, and such other rabble of Asiatic performers, who surpassed in impudence and effrontery the pests from Italy, poured like a flood into his quarters and held sway there. It was past all endurance that everything was devoted to these extravagances.

For all Asia, like the famous city of Sophocles,[*](Thebes, in the Oedipus Rex, 4.)

1. was filled alike with incense offerings,
2. Alike with paeans, too, and voice of heavy groans.

For he took their property from well-born men and bestowed it on flatterers and scoundrels. From many, too, who were actually alive, men got their property by asking him for it on the plea that the owners were dead. The house of a man of Magnesia he gave to a cook, who, as we are told, had won reputation by a single supper.

But finally, when he was imposing a second contribution on the cities, Hybreas, speaking in behalf of Asia, plucked up courage to say this: If thou canst take a contribution twice in one year, thou hast power also to make summer for us twice, and harvest-time twice. These words were rhetorical, it is true, and agreeable to Antony’s taste; but the speaker added in plain and bold words that Asia had given him two hundred thousand talents; If, said he, thou hast not received this money, demand it from those who took it; but if thou didst receive it, and hast it not, we are undone.

This speech made a powerful impression upon Antony; for he was ignorant of most that was going on, not so much because he was of an easy disposition, as because he was simple enough to trust those about him. For there was simplicity in his nature, and slowness of perception, though when he did perceive his errors he showed keen repentance, and made full acknowledgement to the very men who had been unfairly dealt with, and there was largeness both in his restitution to the wronged and in his punishment of the wrong-doers. Yet he was thought to exceed due bounds more in conferring favours than in inflicting punishments.

And his wantonness in mirth and jest carried its own remedy with it. For a man might pay back his jests and insolence, and he delighted in being laughed at no less than in laughing at others. And this vitiated most of his undertakings. For he could not believe that those who used bold speech in jest could flatter him in earnest, and so was easily captivated by their praises,

not knowing that some men would mingle bold speech, like a piquant sauce, with flattery, and thus would take away from flattery its cloying character. Such men would use their bold babbling over the cups to make their submissive yielding in matters of business seem to be the way, not of those who associate with a man merely to please him, but of those who are vanquished by superior wisdom.